This documentary describes human speech as the "wonder of the universe". How right from the start, babies may not be able to speak back to their mother but they know what their mothers voice sounds like and can respond in a series of different sounds that mother know what they need. Mothers also at to their babies as if they can understand, using face to face conversation and always using eye contact. Convergence is very important to use and it helps babies seem to understand what language is used for even if they can't use it straight away. A child's sense of sight could be considered more important to be used in helping language acquisition.
So at 18 months, 50 words are staring to be learned and all are context dependent e.g saying "thank you" for a biscuit. When the child receives the biscuit, they will eat it and know it tastes nice so know saying thank you will receive something nice. It is clever to see how quickly then can put two things together to help improve their knowledge on how to use language. Also, how caregivers tone in speaking is important - how they exaggerate language and how children begin to pick up how the same words but changing it from interrogative to a declarative intonation is important for changing tone. It was also interesting to see how caregivers respond to different genders learning to speak. When a girl got a right word, their was more positive reinforcement than when a boy got it right showing boys are expected to get it right compared to girls. But in 2014 would you say that is starting to change now? Verbs used with onomatopoeia is important in inspiring role plays, stories and imitation of words.
When it comes to 2 1/2 year, adjacency pairs and turn taking is starting to be involved in conversation but not in long sentences so the child is getting used to conversation. However, they still don't know how to really initiate conversation so responsive replies are set by caregiver. Nursery rhymes are a good example how using more complex syntax and slowly teaching children that it is ok to use. At the age if 3, possessive pronouns as beginning to be learned due to context and awareness like "you", "my","his" and "her". By 4, it becomes easier to tell a story via the past tense but there will still be errors. They know not make a noun a simple past but add "ed" onto irregular verbs. The discovery do "and" as a word is important in joining sentences together to make compound syntax with simple connectives to join them together. This helps children to realize they can make longer storied, which can hold the floor more and have more attention. At 5 years old, they become more aware of external influences that effect language that is outside the house, nursery ect, to use the active or passive voice and start to make complex sentences. They still have a long way to go like learning not to side sequence however the basics is over and non-verbal communication also becomes and important way in helping to communicate.
An interesting topic to look at is how autistic children who have aspergers or autism learn langue different to a child who doesn't. How they fit onto the spectrum of learning a language and how the struggle with eye context and conversation. Language is a things that we all learn differently but mostly in the same way.
Ok, so by the time we each adulthood, we have learnt about 100,000 words. As linguists, we mustn't over analyse the ways of learning language, just remember context is important in helping to achieve this.
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